This invention relates generally to improvements in teleconferencing, and in particular, teleconferencing methods and apparatus which improve the resiliency and processing of a multitude of phone signals.
Teleconferencing apparatus and methods are generally known. Telephone operating companies and other private industries have entered this field to address the teleconferencing needs of particular groups or individuals and to improve the management and control of the teleconference meeting.
A typical conference might include a plurality of individuals who are telephonically connected into a discussion by a single operator at a central locality. The teleconference can be managed or unmanaged and can include a record/playback system to record the discussion and make it available over the phone lines for further consideration by the participants.
Typically teleconferencing systems include that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,804, which collects, processes and redistributes information between a plurality incoming telephone lines. Callers connected to these lines can be grouped into selected conferences, or pooled together as subconferences, and are processed to associate members according to voice energy levels.
Difficulties persist with many prior art audio teleconferencing systems. Most particularly, the available systems typically pass data signals in and out of the phone lines via control and switching circuitry whereby a voice is clipped by the network. As more and more users access the teleconferencing system, the switching time increases and listeners can notice missing initial portions of speech. The switching also takes away valuable processing time which is required to significantly improve the quality of the composite signals outgoing to the various persons in the conference.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an audio teleconferencing system which provides for virtual processing of every incoming caller, thereby removing any switching required to access or transmit data to the various callers.
It is another object to provide for improved processing of a plurality of audio phone signals data along a bus, wherein every incoming phone channel is treated with equal priority and the number of users is operationally scaleable (,i.e., without increasing processing overload).
It is also an object of the invention to provide improvements in digital signal processing, the delivery and management of information on a plurality of teleconferencing channels.
These and other objects will become apparent in the description within.